Learning Vocabulary
Contrary to popular belief, Spanish is not easy. Learning a language takes a lot of effort. The following are the steps that I've reasearched and that will help you learn your vocabulary more easily and more effectively. Choose a few techniques and start studying today!
Look and Listen
Read and watch and listen to your textbook vocabulary presentations, read easy Spanish novels or children's books, and do your Teletarea thoughtfully, to see and hear Spanish words in context. The context is the story that will give you clues and help you understand what words mean. Just looking at the vocab list is not good enough. CONTEXT will help you remember your vocabulary much better.
Think
In order to learn you have to link the new words that you are working on to others that you already know. This all goes back to my first point. You need to see/hear the words in context. When little or none is present, then you have to make your own. Here's how:
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Write your own personal definitions for words in Spanish.
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Categorize your new vocab list and add words that you already know to those categories.
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Find cognates and highlight their similarities and/or differences to English.
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Draw pictures or find clip art to represent each word.
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Act out your new words with a special body or hand motions as you say them. Think of this as making up your own personal sign language.
Speak
Speak Spanish at every opportunity. Make up a converstation with your partner using the new words. If you can't think of a whole conversation then make up a sentence that applies to you. The bottom line is that you need to be brave and start speaking. Forget about being perfect and focus on simply speaking in Spanish. Think of all the successful immigrants all around us whose English is horrible but it gets the job done. Your Spanish won't be perfect either but people will understand you anyway. You can do it!